In the last twenty years, the use of personal computing devices, such as desktop computer systems, laptop computer systems, handheld computers systems, and tablet computer systems, has grown tremendously. These personal computing devices provide users with a broad range of interactive applications, business utilities, communication abilities, and entertainment possibilities.
Current personal computing devices provide access to these interactive applications via a user interface. Typical computing devices have on-screen graphical interfaces that present information to a user using a display device, such as a monitor or display screen, and receive information from a user using an input device, such as a mouse, a keyboard, a joystick, or a stylus. New personal computing devices are also being developed which use an interactive writing device to interact and non-interactive writing devices to interact with a writing surface.
Many of these interactive writing devices have a need to detect the actual physical act of interfacing with the writing surface. One way current interactive writing devices accomplish this detection by utilizing an ink pen or stylus, to transmit pressure to a switch that is activated by writing pressure. This works well with styli, stick type pens, and some spring cushioned pens, because the entire length of the pen or stylus moves with the act of writing to apply direct pressure to the writing detection switch, and further, because there is no mode selector to interfere with the action of the writing detection switch. However, this limits the functionality of the writing device because such a switch configuration will not work properly, or sometimes at all, with a writing device such as a mechanical pencil or with a writing device that has multiple selectable modes of operation, because these devices can apply forces which defeat the operation of conventional writing sensing switch configurations.